Confession: The South African beauty vamped up the July cover of Esquire and said 'the fact that I'm [unmarried] at 38' is not necessarily the lifestyle 'a lot of women want'

'I wasn't in any place that I even wanted something like that...it's like if you are open to something, if you just let it happen, it will happen. When you least expect it.'

The 53-year-old Oscar winner will soon direct Charlize in the African romantic drama The Last Face alongside Javier Bardem and Adèle Exarchopoulos.

The Young Adult funnywoman - who's mother to two-year-old son Jackson - said she always knew she'd adopt a child.

'It will happen when you least expect it': Unmarried yes, but Theron has spent the past five months romancing fellow A-lister Sean Penn

Collaborating: The 53-year-old Oscar winner will soon direct Charlize in the African romantic drama The Last Face alongside Javier Bardem and Adèle Exarchopoulos

'I was like, "Ah, finally!"' Charlize said of the adorable boy.

But Theron insisted that motherhood was 'not the reason' behind her 2010 split from Stuart Townsend after a nine-year courtship.

She said: 'In his defense, it was not that he didn't want to have children, it was just something that never worked out.'

'I was like, "Ah, finally!"' The Young Adult funnywoman - who's mother to two-year-old son Jackson - said she always knew she'd adopt a child

First love: But Theron insisted that motherhood was 'not the reason' behind her 2010 split from Stuart Townsend after a nine-year courtship (picture here in 2009)

The
bulk of the Esquire interview involved Charlize's decision to play a
woman traumatized by the massacre of her family in Dark Places - due out
September 1.

When
the Monster actress was 15 her mother Gerda was forced to shoot
Theron's alcoholic father Charles dead after he threatened them both.

The 1991 shooting on the family's farm in Benoni was later ruled by a judge as self-defense, and her mother faced no charges.

'This is why it's so hard, I get it': The bulk of the Esquire interview involved Charlize's decision to play a woman traumatized by the massacre of her family in Dark Places - due out September 1

'I'm not denying that [my father's death] is a part of me': When the Monster actress was 15 her mother Gerda was forced to shoot Theron's alcoholic father Charles dead after he threatened them both

'It's titillating. It sells magazines, at the expense of me and other people who were involved,' she said of her family tragedy.

'I'm
asking for it a little bit with [Dark Places]. I'll 'fess up to that.
This is why it's so hard: I get it. I get that people, if they know the
[Gillian Flynn] book, would be like, "Oh, of course Charlize is doing
this."'

The
former ballerina continued: 'I’m not denying that [my father's death]
is a part of me. I just don't think it's the only part of me, and I
think sometimes people like to blow it out of proportion.'

On Tuesday, Charlize joined her A Million Ways to Die in the West castmates Amanda Seyfried and Seth MacFarlane for a London photo-call.

Promoting in England: On Tuesday, Charlize joined her A Million Ways to Die in the West castmates Amanda Seyfried and Seth MacFarlane for a London photo-call